New Releases by Aaron Becker

With an eye to holiday rituals and nature''s rebirth, New York Times best-selling creator Aaron Becker offers a luminous die-cut companion to You Are Light, My Favorite Color, and One Sky. Hush, now. Be still. It''s time for winter light. Come winter, the days grow short. Sunlight filters through bare branches as ice crystals cover the meadow. In this quiet time, we turn to warmth and light, to family rituals and traditions. With jewellike die-cuts revealing the colors of the season against soft painterly backgrounds, Caldecott Honoree Aaron Becker captures the light of winter skies and lengthening days, the glow of candle and hearth, and the heart''s yearning for spring''s return.

Welcome the much-anticipated finale of Caldecott Honoree Aaron Becker’s wordless trilogy—a spectacular, emotionally satisfying story that brings its adventurer home. Failing to get the attention of her busy father, a lonely girl turns back to a fantastic world for friendship and adventure. It’s her third journey into the enticing realm of kings and emperors, castles and canals, exotic creatures and enchanting landscapes. This time, it will take something truly powerful to persuade her to return home, as a gripping backstory is revealed that will hold readers in its thrall. Caldecott Honor winner Aaron Becker delivers a suspenseful and moving climax to his wordless trilogy, an epic that began with the award-winning Journey and continued with the celebrated follow-up Quest.

Aaron Becker, creator of Journey, a Caldecott Honor book, presents the next chapter in his stunning wordless fantasy. A king emerges from a hidden door in a city park, startling two children sheltering from the rain. No sooner does he push a map and some strange objects into their hands than he is captured by hostile forces that whisk him back through the enchanted door. Just like that, the children are caught up in a quest to rescue the king and his kingdom from darkness, while illuminating the farthest reaches of their imagination. Colored markers in hand, they make their own way through the portal, under the sea, through a tropical paradise, over a perilous bridge, and high in the air with the help of a winged friend. Journey lovers will be thrilled to follow its characters on another adventure threaded with familiar elements, while new fans will be swept into a visually captivating story that is even richer and more exhilarating than the first.

A master of the wordless form imagines a futuristic Noah’s Ark in a luminous sci-fi parable for our changing world. The Earth has flooded. The only signs of humankind are the waterlogged structures they left behind. Peeking out from the deluge are the remnants of a zoo, home to rare and endangered animals, survivors of long neglect. Tender-hearted NOA is a construction robot who’s found new purpose as the caretaker of the zoo’s beleaguered inhabitants. Bracing for the next storm, NOA builds an ark from the wreckage in search of new land and a new home, only to discover something even more profound. With boundless compassion and sweeping scenes of sea and sky punctuated by detailed wordless panels to pore over, Caldecott Honor–winning creator Aaron Becker delivers a timely and concrete message about the rewards of caring in even the most difficult of times that is sure to inspire the dreamers among us.

"In an alternate past--or possible future--a mighty tree stands on the banks of a winding river, bearing silent witness to the flow of time and change. A family farms the fertile valley. Soon, a village sprouts, and not long after, a town. Residents learn to harness the water, the wind, and the animals in order to survive and thrive. The growing population becomes ever more industrious and clever, bending nature itself to their will and their ambition: redirecting rivers, harvesting lumber, reshaping the land, even extending daylight itself. "--

The winner of the prestigious Caldecott Honor, and described by the New York Times as ''a masterwork'', Aaron Becker''s stunning, wordless picture book debut about self-determination and unexpected friendship follows a little girl who draws a magic door on her bedroom wall. Through it she escapes into a world where wonder, adventure and danger abound. Red marker pen in hand, she creates a boat, a balloon and a flying carpet which carry her on a spectacular journey ... who knows where? When she is captured by a sinister emperor, only an act of tremendous courage and kindness can set her free. Can it also guide her home and to happiness? In this exquisitely illustrated book, an ordinary child is launched on an extraordinary, magical journey towards her greatest and most rewarding adventure of all...

A girl grieves the loss of her dog in an achingly beautiful wordless epic from the Caldecott Honor–winning creator of Journey. This year’s summer vacation will be very different for a young girl and her family without Sascha, the beloved family dog, along for the ride. But a wistful walk along the beach to gather cool, polished stones becomes a brilliant turning point in the girl’s grief. There, at the edge of a vast ocean beneath an infinite sky, she uncovers, alongside the reader, a profound and joyous truth. In his first picture book following the conclusion of his best-selling Journey trilogy, Aaron Becker achieves a tremendous feat, connecting the private, personal loss of one child to a cycle spanning millennia — and delivering a stunningly layered tale that demands to be pored over again and again.